Unified Schools | Global Youth

Unified Schools

Special Olympics Unified Schools empower youth and educators to be leaders of change. By playing and learning, we will create a more inclusive world.

Special Olympics believes that in order to create lasting attitudinal change across the world, the focus must start with today’s youth. As part of a concerted strategy to ensure the movement reaches as many young people as possible, in countries around the world, Special Olympics has created Unified Schools: a program designed to promote social inclusion and social-emotional learning through inclusive sport in primary schools, secondary schools, and universities throughout the world.

Special Olympics has created Unified Schools as a sustainable and scalable mechanism to deliver Unified Sports opportunity to more youth worldwide and to address the global need to teach social and emotional learning to youth of all abilities.

Schools that demonstrate a higher commitment to creating a more connected environment through inclusive sport, inclusive youth leadership development, and whole-school engagement for inclusion are designated as a Unified Champion School.

See our work in action below through our "Play Unified. Learn Unified." Project funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation: